A federal civil rights investigation of the Ferguson, Mo., police force has concluded that the department violated the Constitution when it policed to raise money and with a racial bias toward African-Americans, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the report.

The investigation, the source says, concluded that blacks were disproportionately targeted by the police and the justice system, which has led to a lack of trust in police and courts and to few partnerships for public safety.

Eating a steak dinner in Mumbai nowadays could land you in prison for up to five years and cost you more than $150 in fines.

Indian President Pranab Mukherjee today approved a bill that strictly bans the slaughter of cows, along with the sale, consumption or even possession of beef in the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located. The bill will also include a ban on the slaughter of bulls and bullocks, but not water buffaloes.

Parallels

1:12 pm

Tue March 3, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday. Netanyahu said the world must unite to "stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation and terror." House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio (left) and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, listen.

Since first becoming prime minister in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu has hammered away at Iran's nuclear program, calling it the greatest threat to Israel. Yet Tuesday's speech to Congress, like many before it, sharply criticized the international response to Iran while offering relatively little as an alternative.

Your child is sick and requires admission to the hospital. As the clerk tut-tuts over the shortage of beds, he casts a speculative eye over his clipboard. The situation becomes clear: It's time to break out the wallet and cough up a bribe. Again.

Paying bribes for essential health services might seem alien to most of us in the Western world, but it's a fact of life for an estimated 1.6 billion people around the globe, according to a new book.

NPR Story

12:43 pm

Tue March 3, 2015

Juan Perez #2, Gregor Blanco #7 and Hunter Pence #8 of the San Francisco Giants celebrate after defeating the Washington Nationals on October 4, 2014. The game was the longest of the 2014 season, ending in the 18 innings. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Major League Baseballâ€™s spring training games are underway in Florida and Arizona â€“ and clocks are ticking.Â After last seasonâ€™s average game lasted a record 3Â hours and 2Â minutes, the push is on to speed things up.

Doug TribouÂ of NPRâ€™s Only A Game joins Here & Nowâ€™s Robin Young to explainÂ how the league plans to do that, and how the players are reacting.

NPR Story

12:43 pm

Tue March 3, 2015

Oral arguments begin tomorrow in a closely watched Supreme Court case that could dismantle the Affordable Care Act and eliminate health insurance for more than eight million Americans. (Susan Walsh/AP)

Oral arguments begin tomorrow in a closely watched Supreme Court case that could dismantle the Affordable Care Act and eliminate health insurance for more than eight million Americans.

The case centers on one phrase in the law â€“ â€śestablished by the State.â€ť

The four plaintiffs in King V. Burwell, funded by conservative groups including Competitive Enterprise Institute, argue that â€śthe Stateâ€ť refers solely to the 16 states that have set up their own exchanges, not the federal government, which established exchanges in 34 states.

Tue March 3, 2015

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted today to fund the Department of Homeland Security through the end of the budget year â€” without any restrictions on immigration. The vote is a victory for President Obama as Republicans had wanted to strip funding for the president's executive actions on immigration from the bill.

NPR Ed

12:03 pm

Tue March 3, 2015

Several big states have seen alarming drops in enrollment at teacher training programs. The numbers are grim among some of the nation's largest producers of new teachers: In California, enrollment is down 53 percent over the last five years. It's down sharply in New York and Texas as well.

In North Carolina, enrollment is down nearly 20 percent in three years.

Sara Creech has grown dependent on farming. She started out planting an orchard of fruit trees: apples, peaches, cherries and pears. She added berry bushes and rows of vegetables.

And then she bought her first chickens.

"A lot of people call chickens the gateway animal," says Creech, who lives in rural North Salem, Ind. "Like once you have a chicken on the farm, then you end up getting sheep on the farm, and then you end up getting horses, and cows. And then it just explodes from there."

Former CIA Director and retired Gen. David Petraeus, whose military career has been overshadowed by charges that he provided classified data to his mistress, has made a deal with the Justice Department in which he will plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.

The deal will allow Petraeus, who rose to the rank of a four-star general before becoming director of the CIA, to avoid a trial and plead guilty to a misdemeanor. He'll also avoid a prison sentence, if a federal court agrees with the plea deal's terms.

The knock-knock joke has been a staple of American humor since the early 20th century. With its repetitive set-up and wordplay punchline, the form has been invoked â€” and understood â€” by people of all ages and sensibilities.

The eruption of the Villarrica volcano in southern Chile has prompted the evacuation of thousands of people, as it spewed heavy smoke into the air and lava down its slopes.

The 9,000 foot volcano hovers over the city of Pucon, home to about 22,000 people.

"It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen," Travis Armstrong, a 29-year-old Australian tourist, told The Associated Press. "I've never seen a volcano erupt and it was spewing lava and ash hundreds of meters into the air. Lightning was striking down at the volcano from the ash cloud that formed from the eruption."

The Two-Way

8:20 am

Tue March 3, 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday. He called the deal the U.S. and its allies are negotiating with Iran "very bad."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a deal the U.S. and its allies are pursuing with Iran over its nuclear program is "very bad" because, according to him, it doesn't take away the Islamic republic's ability to ultimately obtain nuclear weapons.

"This is a bad deal â€” a very bad deal," Netanyahu told a joint meeting of Congress today. "We're better off without it."

House Republicans are questioning why the Obama administration transferred money last year from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to pay for the operation of the federal health insurance marketplace.

"Now it appears that we are robbing Peter to pay Paul in order to finance the disaster that is HealthCare.Gov," said Rep. Jody Hice, a Republican congressman from suburban Atlanta.

Shots - Health News

6:27 am

Tue March 3, 2015

Dr. Chuck Denham, once a leading voice for patient safety, will pay $1 million to settle civil allegations that he took kickbacks to promote a drug company's product in national health quality guidelines, the Justice Department announced Monday.

The Two-Way

6:22 am

Tue March 3, 2015

Iraqi security forces and Shiite fighters fire artillery during clashes with ISIS militants in Salahuddin province. The push to retake Tikrit is being aided by Iran, which is providing rockets and other support to Iraq.

The new Iraqi effort to retake Tikrit from the self-styled Islamic State, or ISIS, brought fierce fighting to areas around the city Tuesday. A local source says that Iran, which has already been aiding Iraq with artillery and intelligence support, has sent fighters to help seize Tikrit.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck are calling for calm and patience as three investigations are underway into the police killing of a homeless man Sunday. Police say the man "forcibly grabbed" an officer's gun before he was shot to death.

Beck called the incident a tragedy that followed a "brutal, brutal fight."

The police confrontation with a man known as Afrika was filmed by at least two eyewitnesses. A dramatic video sparked criticism of the police, as it showed several officers attempting to hold him down before shots rang out.

Israel's Prime Minister is expected to deliver a stern warning when he speaks to a joint meeting of Congress Tuesday morning. Benjamin Netanyahu says the nuclear deal that the U.S. and other countries are pursuing with Iran could threaten Israel's survival.

That's not a new message from Netanyahu, but it's drawing extra attention because of the way the speech came about: Republican congressional leaders invited the prime minister with no involvement from the White House.

And now news of the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress who will not be running for re-election next year. Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski made that surprise announcement yesterday in her hometown of Baltimore.

2:03 am

Tue March 3, 2015

UPDATE 1:36 pm ET: The livestream has ended. We'll update this post with the on-demand version as soon as it's available.

Health is more than the sum of its parts. Sometimes in surprising ways, factors such as childhood experiences, housing conditions, poor diets and health care access drive who ends up sick â€” and who does not.

Religion

1:47 am

Tue March 3, 2015

A Lego model of All Souls Church rests on the altar, which was retained when the Bolton, England, church was renovated into an interfaith community center. The model was built by children taking part in an after-school program there.

Inayat Omarji vividly remembers the worried reaction when he first looked into renovating the abandoned church in his neighborhood: "There's a bearded young Muslim chap involved in a church! Whoops! He's gonna turn it into a mosque!"